


Fifty Flavours of Turkish Delight

by Licoriceallsorts



Category: 50 Shades of Grey - E. L. James, Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: AU, Candy, FFVII/Fifty Shades of Grey crossover, Fifty Shades of Grey parody, Multi, Turkfic/Fifty Shades of Grey crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-12 23:49:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Licoriceallsorts/pseuds/Licoriceallsorts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When innocent but spunky Pudenda Grucock catches the eye of enigmatic billionaire Rude Attaturk, she soon finds herself being introduced to his secret world of pleasure... and pain. And industrial espionage. And candy. Lots of candy. Not to mention his wacky colleagues, Tseng, Reno, and Elena, and his difficult blonde boss, Rufus Shinra.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flavour No. 1: Coffee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Soak](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Soak).



> Written for all my fellow Turk-fans on the General Turks Worship Thread over at thelifestream.net, and especially for soak, whose love of Rude inspired me.

It was early Saturday morning, and senior year fine arts undergraduate Pudenda Grucock, known to her friends as Puddy, or sometimes Endy, or Andie if they’d only met her once or twice at loud parties and hadn’t really caught her name, was standing in front of the chipped bathroom mirror in her cheap student digs, itemising her appearance. As always, the sum of her features added up to disappointment and deep feelings of inadequacy. Her hair was too brown, too thick, too curly; her mouth was too full, her lips too red. But her eyes were the worst. Too big for her heartshaped face, so green that she was often accused of wearing tinted contact lenses, and with thick dark lashes and pupils that were naturally so unnaturally large that she had been twice been hauled in front of the Dean on suspicion of using illegal substances, even though she was completely, utterly innocent, they were the bane of her existence.

 

Suddenly a terrible explosion that sounded like a very loud sneeze (which was indeed what it subsequently turned out to have been) issued forth from the bedroom Pudenda shared with her best, and only, female friend, Daphne Dulberg. Fearing the worst, Pudenda rushed to the bedroom, only to find that her worst fears were confirmed. “Oh, my,” she gasped. “You look absolutely awful.”

 

Daphne’s normally brilliant sapphire blue eyes were red-rimmed and watery. Her pert snub nose was running fulsomely over her full upper lip, and her usually well-behaved mane of sleek blond hair had tangled itself into the worst case of bedhead Pudenda had ever seen.

 

“I’b gob a code,” Daphne wheezed, blowing her nose loudly.

 

Pudenda was used to being ‘the plain friend’, the one the ‘uncool guy’ or the ‘nerd’ was left making awkward conversation with at the bar, while ‘cheerleader type’ Daphne went outside with the ‘blond jock’ to ‘check out his convertible.’ But it looked as if Daphne was the ‘plain one’ today!! Pudenda’s inner schadenfreude sprite sniggered spitefully, but she sternly repressed its malevolent impulses and said sympathetically, “I don’t think you can go to work today.”

 

A cunning glint appeared in Daphne’s bloodshot eye. “No. But you could go in my place, Pud.”

 

“Can I keep the tips?” Pudenda bargained.

 

“Oh, all right,” Daphne sniffed, muttering under her breath, _greedy cow._

 

_* * *_

 Four hours later, Pudenda was leaning on the counter of the coffee shop where Daphne worked as a barista, ekeing out the skinny latte she’d served to herself on the house, while she poured over job ads in the local paper and tried to calculate how much interest she would still be owing on her student loans when she reached retirement age. It was very quiet in the coffee shop. They hadn’t had any customers all morning.

 

Suddenly the bell over the door tinkled. Pudenda immediately stopped surreptitiously picking her nose and looked up.  An extremely sexy tall bald man with piercing chrysoberyl eyes, skin the colour of a skilfully frothed cappucino like you might drink on the Champs Elysee with just a dash of kahlua and some cinnamon sprinkled on top and many intriguing studs that were no doubt gifts from ex-lovers piercing his shapely ear lobes walked in through the door, wearing the most beautifully tailored dark-blue pin-striped three piece suit and silk tie Pudenda had ever seen.

 

This man's appearance simply screamed money, and lots of it.

 

Pudenda found the thought very arousing. She slowly stirred her spoon in the dregs of her latte, in a lingering, sensual way.

 

The delicate crystal chime of her teaspoon on the lip of her white mug caught the extremely hot and somewhat dark-skinned wealthy man's attention. He turned his head to look her way, removing his six hundred dollar Prada sunglasses to get a better look at the bold wench who had the temerity to impinge on his consciousness.

 

His eyes were like turbid golden pools of lust shining with the fulfilled desires purchased by all that filthy lucre. Pudenda felt even more aroused and stirred her spoon with renewed vigour.

 

She recognised him, of course. What woman who had ever spent a hour sitting under a hair dryer in the local salon on half-price trainee day reading "Hullo" Magazine from cover to cover would fail to recognise the enigmatic Rudolphus Maximovich Attaturk, a notorious oil billionaire from the formerly Soviet republic of Turkmenistan, owner of several football teams including Instanbul United and Wolverhampton Wanderers, his own island in the Turks and Caicos, a TV studio in Seoul producing high quality soap operas starring hot young Korean actors who resembled video game characters, and an extremely large private jet.

 

“A double kir rocky road machiatto,” he said. The strong bass tremolo of Rudolphus Attaturk’s voice was like the knuckles of a deep-tissue massage running up and down the tender aching sinews of her spine. Her hands trembled as she assembled said beverage. No man had even shaken her to the core like this simply by placing an order.

 

 _Order_ , thought Pudenda. _Oh my, I wouldn’t mind taking some other ‘orders’ from him. Oh, my naughty subconscious! Down, girl!_

 

She held his cup out to him. Was it her imagination, or did his fingertips linger just a moment on her as he accepted the offering? The dark pupils of his sensuous smouldering eyes widened as he looked her slowly up and down, and Pundenda could sense that he was as aroused and intrigued as she was.

 

In that moment, Pudenda knew she had met her destiny.


	2. Honey

After her exchange of piercing meaningful glances with the exotically attractive Rudolphus Attaturk, Pudenda had to leave the coffee shop in a hurry so that she would not be late for her own part-time job at the Bulk Barn*. Thoughts of the broodingly handsome and quite thrillingly financially well-endowed Mr Attaturk were distracting her so badly that twice she lost her way, once ending up at the swings in the public park and once nearly getting run over by a angry bell-ringing cyclist as she wandered in a daze across the road. "I wonder why is he disturbing me like this?" she wondered. "I've never spent so much time thinking about a man before. I feel quite tingly." Pudenda had been too busy with her studies to bother with the opposite sex, who all only wanted one thing anyway. "Oh my," she thought. "Oh well, I'll soon be too busy at work to keep thinking about his lucious caramel-coloured eyes and his intriguingly broad shoulders."

 

Imagine her surprise when, half an hour after her shift began, who should walk in to her branch of the Bulk Barn but 'Rude' Attaturk himself. Pudenda didn't know why she mentally gave him that nickname, because he wasn't rude at all, he was handsome and sexy and rich with extremely polished manners. She giggled. What a silly she was.

 

"We meet again," said Rude Attaturk in a voice like sugared honey that dripped delicious sensuality into the delicate Guylain seashells of Pudenda's ears. "I find myself obliged to buy the ingredients for a - confection..." He smiled at her suggestively. If only she knew what he was suggesting! His teeth were as white and shapely and cavity-free as those little pillow-shaped pieces of peppermint-flavoured sugar-free chewing gum. He looked good enough to eat!

 

He lined up his purchases on the counter and she began to ring them through: a large tub of crunchy peanut butter; rose water; a jug of olive oil, sixteen bars of coverture chocolate; pink and white marshmallows; four bags of gummi bears; a dozen spray-cans of whipped cream, candied strawberries, a sherbet fountain and a Yorkie Bar.

 

"You have quite a wide selection of... icings, here," he said, gesturing with one well-manicured hand towards the large cardboard barrels filled to the brimmed with a deliciously whipped combination of guar gum, palm oil and refined sugar in a variety of intriguing flavours. Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, smurf.... "Which would you - recommend?" he asked her using his warm husky voice.

 

"For - what?" Pudenda squeaked. Oh my, he would take her for a green young thing for sure!

 

"For putting on... Turkish Delight," he replied, smiling openly now with some secret knowledge that his mischievous golden eyes, which saw deep into her innocent soul, solemnly promised would one day be hers. She was interested despite herself because as far she knew, you didn't put icing on Turkish Delight, you rolled it in icing _sugar_ \- which was also a curiously arousing thought. But then, what did she know of the strange ways of the Turk people from Turkmenistan? He came from a different world from the world she knew. Rude Attaturk was a billionaire; if he wanted to put icing on his Turkish Delight, he could afford it.

 

"I followed you here, you know," he informed her, sending frissons of irrepressible delight tingling down her spine. "I sense that we are destined to... know one another better. I can see in your eyes that you have a... sweet tooth. As do I, though I believe you haven't yet been awakened to the full intensity of its desires. Are you busy this weekend?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * For all non-North Americans, the Bulk Barn is a store, or shop, where you can buy large quanities of dry goods, baking ingredients, and sweets (or candies) at a discount.


	3. The Taste of Betrayal

Pudenda finished her shift at the Bulk Barn and went home, her head in a whirl as she thought about her forthcoming weekend date with the dashingly handsome billionaire Rude Attaturk. She had never felt so much desire for any man as she felt for him. She had never felt any desire for any man at all! She had always believed that all men only wanted one thing (except for her gay best friend Dave, of course) – but now she, Pudenda, could think of nothing but that one thing: the honeyed touch of his lips on hers, the silky sweetness of his milk chocolate skin, his lustrous caramel eyes devouring her unwrapped nakedness before spraying Coolwhip all over her feverish flesh…

In a haze of lust she walked through the door of her apartment to find her best gay male friend Dave and her best friend for life and roommate Daphne sitting together at the kitchen table drinking coffee and talking about her. She could tell they were talking about her because they shut up as soon as she walked in and wouldn’t look at each other or at her. Probably they’d been gossiping about whether she was ever going to lose her virginity! God, why were her friends such bitches? Daphne could be the kindest person on earth when she wasn’t being a complete slut; she was paying her way through college as a leg model for a hosiery company, and all the men were crazy about her long blond hair and her Barbie doll proportions. God, why were men so shallow? 

Rude wasn’t shallow, though. A woman could drown in the profound depths of soul to be glimpsed in the shadowy pupils of his eyes, black and bitter-sweet like melted licorice…

“You haven’t been listening to a word I said,” Daphne complained shrilly. She slammed her coffee cup on the table, got up and left the room.

“God, she can be such a bitch sometimes,” sighed the long-suffering Pudenda. “If she wasn’t so loving and kind I’d totally dump her as a friend. I really don't need all these blondes in my life.”

Pudenda’s trusted gay male friend Dave stood up. “I needed to talk to someone and Daphne was the only one willing to listen,” he said.

“Have you finally worked up the courage to come out to your parents? I’m so happy for you; that’s really brave, Dave.”

“No, Pudsy,” he replied firmly. “I’ve decided to come out to you.”

“But I already know you’re gay, Dave. You know I think that’s awesome.”

“No,” he replied firmly, “You just assumed I was gay, because I didn’t try to come on to you. I let you go on believing it because we all know how uptight you are around guys and I didn’t want to scare you away. But in fact, Pudders,” he said, thrusting his way between the kitchen chairs to grab Pudenda by both her slim trembling shoulders, “I love you, and Daphne and I have decided it’s time I did something about it.”

Dave leaned forward and covered her mouth with his. Panicking, Pudenda flailed her arms uselessly. This wasn’t the sweet ecstasy she had dreamed of! His lips tasted like – skin, and – salt – and his kiss tasted like – saliva… and his breath was hot and moist and smelt faintly of bitter coffee.. and she couldn’t breathe, but not in a good way like she was holding her breath with awe because the experience was so earth-shattering, but more like somebody was pressing a damp feather pillow, or maybe a freshly dead fish, into her face. Also, Dave was not gay?! Oh, my! This was a real shocker. Mustering all her strength, she pushed him away.

“No!” she cried. “Stop!” But at the same time she wondering guiltily if she had somehow led him on. If only she had known he wasn’t gay, she would have tried to act a bit less friendly around him. God, was it all her fault?

“You’ve got to let those walls come down sometime, Puds,” he firmly replied, leaning in for another wet-fish-smothering session. 

The next thing Pudenda knew, she was inhaling gasps of clean fresh air and Dave was dangling off the ground three feet away from her, suspended in Rude Attaturk’s mighty fist. “I think the lady said No,” Rude rumbled. 

Dave couldn’t speak. Rude was holding him up by the shirt collar and it was choking him. Casually Rude cast him to one side. His head struck the corner of the stainless steel refrigerator and he slumped to the floor, motionless. A trail of blood smeared the refrigerator door. 

“My helicopter is waiting outside,” said Rude, turning and holding out his hand to Pudenda. “Let’s go.”


	4. Wholesome like Apples

“Hiya, sweetcheeks,” a nasal but friendly voice greeted Pudenda as she climbed into the waiting helicopter, with Rude’s hand on her buttock boosting her inside. “So you’re the sugar plum that’s got my pal all sweaty under the armpits. Nice ta meetcha, honeybun.”

The speaker was sitting at the controls of the helicopter, craning his neck around to get a look at her. He was a long, lean man with prominent collarbones, an abundance of spiked crimson hair, orbs of cerulean blue – or maybe aquamarine, or even phthalo or cadmium cobalt for all Pudenda knew; she hadn’t honestly paid a lot of attention in art class. Anyway his eyes were remarkably bright and full of mischief and his lopsided grin was definitely charming in an unwashed, skanky kind of way, and Pudenda might have found him extremely attractive if she wasn’t already head over heels in lust with Rude, who was the ultimate sexy gentleman and had clean fingernails to boot. Also the pilot sported a crescent shaped tattoo slashed across each cheekbone. Either that, or those goggles he’d pushed up onto his forehead had left pressure marks on his skin. Whatever; Rude’s hand was still on her derriere and his touch was making all four of her cheeks burn with hitherto undreamt-of sensations.

“You can look,” Rude growled behind her, his deep voice sending thrills of anticipation rippling through her veins. “But you better not touch.” This warning was obviously intended for the pilot and not for her. It warmed the cockles of her heart to feel that he cherished her enough to be so possessive. 

“Pudenda,” he said, “Allow me to introduce Reno O’Turk, my partner in crime.”

Partner? thought Pudenda in alarm. According to everything she’d ever read in Hello! Magazine, Rude’s billions were his and his alone.

“At your service,” smirked Reno O’Turk, settling the goggles down over his eyes. “I’ll be flying this magic carpet to Midgar today.”

Pudenda turned to Rude. “Midgar?” she queried.

“The capital of my motherland, Turkmenistan,” his deep and gravelly voice replied.

“Oh,” she replied. She wasn’t sure where Turkmenistan was. Maybe somewhere in the Caribbean? Anyway, she guessed it was going to be a long flight. Hopefully the helicopter offered in-flight movies. Guiltily she wondered if she should let Daphne know where she was going, but swiftly decided - No! Daphne had conspired together with Dave; she was a false friend! Pudenda had always suspected it, and now she had proof. Let Daphne suffer the agonies of worry. Pudenda was with Rude, and that was all that mattered. 

“You takin’ the little sugar dumpling aft?” the red-headed pilot with the pressure-mark tattoos and turquoise oscularities inquired of the broad-shouldered, sleek-pated billionaire with the heavily muscled thighs. Pudenda had no idea what he meant by ‘take her aft” but the words sounded spicily suggestive. Her heart began to beat a little faster.

“Keep your eyes on the skies,” Rude growled. Still with his hand on Pudenda’s buttock, he nudged her right and steered her through a narrow door into a private cabin. Pudenda heard Reno snickering lasciviously before Rude closed the door behind them. 

Then she turned around, saw where she was, and stopped dead in her tracks. Oh, my, she thought.

She’d never seen anything like this, except in the pages of magazines and on some TV shows and also occasionally in movies. The four walls of the private cabin were lined with zinc-topped counters, and behind the counters were shelves upon shelves stacked with large glass bottles filled with every kind of candy and sweet imaginable: bull’s eyes, humbugs, pear drops, milk drops, chocolate drops; wine gums, jelly babies, sour worms and rainbows of smarties, to name but a few. Below the counters were more racks stocked with chocolate bars, chewing gum, boxes of crackerjack, neon-hued jawbreakers, coconut ice wrapped in rice-paper and glittering sticks of peppermint rock striped red and green. In one corner there was a glass-fronted refrigerator filled to the brim with curvaceous bottles of soda-pop. Ropes of licorice, scarlet and black, hung in swags from the ceiling. The crazy thought came to her, it’s like an old fashioned sweet-shop out of the 1970s!! But this cabin held something she’d never seen in any sweetshop. Right in the centre of the floor was a kind of raised table, about the size of a queen-sized bed, covered with what looked like a real polar bear fur rug, because it was. 

Rude took her by the hand, led her to the bearskin, and told her to sit down. Then he lifted a part of the counter that was on a hinge, walked behind it, and turned to her, saying, “Whatever your heart desires – you can indulge it here,” gesturing with his hand at the resplendent temptations of confectioner’s art shamelessly, nay, wantonly displayed all around her.

Oh my, she gasped inwardly. He wants to eat this stuff! And he wants me to eat it too! He wants us to eat it together! Of course he does – that’s why he was in the Bulk Barn buying all those marshmallows and Coolwhip! How could I have been so naïve! 

Pudenda looked down primly at her hands. She couldn’t deny that the sheer smell of so much sugar and tartrazine was beginning to make her head spin in a way that was far from unpleasant. The thought of putting one of those illicit sherbet fountains into her mouth – sucking on it – feeling it burst on her tongue - swallowing its fizziness – all these things she’d only ever read about - it made mouth go suddenly dry with excitement. She was terribly afraid she’d given Rude the wrong impression. 

In a frail, nervous voice, she began, “Rude, I – I have a confession to make. I’ve never eaten anything containing sugar in my life.”

His look of stunned disbelief made her feel deeply embarrassed and immature. “What?” he exclaimed. “Never? How is that possible, in this day and age, when the monopolistic multinational food corporations put sugar in everything, even processed cheese and tinned celery?”

“Well, you see, my father is a dentist, and my mother was stay-at-home mom who cooked all our food from scratch. They don’t believe in sugar. In fact, they call it ‘white heroin’.”

“But you work in the Bulk Barn!”

“They like me there because I never help myself to candy from the barrels.”

“But - what about Hallowe’en?” said Rude. He looked outraged on her behalf.

“Nuts, apples, and money was all I was allowed.”

“But surely,” he said, still looking appalled, “Once you left home and went to university… Have you never been even just a little bit curious to taste ‘forbidden fruit’?”

“My parents promised to give me a thousand dollars and a cell phone if I went through university without ever once trying sugar,” she admitted.

“I see,” Rude rumbled thoughtfully. “Well, that’s quite an incentive, but I think I can see their thousand dollars and cell phone and raise it a week’s all-expense paid shopping trip to Fifth Avenue and a brand new Macbook. Can your parents match my offer?”

Pudenda shook her head earnestly. Her duty was clear: Rude’s bribe knocked her parents’ bribe into a cocked hat, and they’d always impressed on her how important it was to do the very best for herself.

“I can see I’m going to have my work cut out for me,” Rude murmured, a playful smile playing about his lips. “I was going to go straight to the chocolate-covered rose-flavoured Turkish Delight, but I think that might be a bit too rich for your first time. I don’t want to overwhelm you. I want to do this right, take it slowly. Introduce you to my world of pleasure little by little. Let me see…” He ran his fingers along the shelves, taking his time making the selection, while Pudenda, perched on the polar bear rug, ran her fingers through its soft white fur and felt her lips tingle with anticipation that owed more than a little to fear, and the consciousness that she was about to do something very, very naughty….


	5. Vanilla

“I think that this will do for starters,” said Rude, pulling an oblong packet down from the shelf and bringing it over to where Pudenda was sitting on the polar bear rug. The plastic sheath of the packet was glossy and very see-through: Pudenda glimpsed tempting pale curves pressed wantonly one on top of the other. Their surfaces glittered with a fine dusting of sugar.

“Ladyfingers,” Rude explained. Each biscuit had an almost hour-glass shape, nipped in the middle like a Victorian courtesan’s corseted waist. With the tip of his little finger Rude popped the taut plastic wrapping with a loud “pop”, then ran his finger inside the opening he had made and, by gently working it backwards and forwards, slowly widened the slit. With a noise like a whispered sigh, Pudenda heard something fragile tear, and squirmed on the white fur rug in a mingling of shame and intrigue. 

The opening was now large enough for Rude to introduce a second finger. Pudenda had to swallow a cry of alarm. Rude’s opaque, soulful hazel eyes came up to meet her own. Her heart stopped. “Are you frightened?” he asked in that deep gravelly treacley voice that had the power to make her heart turn backflips. 

“A little,” she murmured in reply. Pudenda feared the packet might rip all the way open and its contents spill across the floor, which would be wasteful and also messy. 

Rude returned all his attention to the packet. With practiced ease he slid two fingers in through the opening his ministrations had created, and then with a deft scissoring motion pinched one of the biscuits between the tips of his two fingers and slowly withdrew it, without spilling a crumb. How experienced he is at this, Pudenda inwardly sighed. And how much I have to learn!

A heavenly aroma teased her nostrils as Rude drew the biscuit from the packet. The sugar alone was enough to make her head spin, but she detected something else, a warm smell, the smell of sun-baked flowers grown to slow fruition under a tropical sky; a deceptively simply, disingenuous, seductive scent. Pudenda’s mouth began to water. Her appetites were stirring as never before. Oh, my! How quickly she had become aroused! Painfully conscious once more of her burdensome innocence in all matters confectional, she shut her eyes so that Rude would not see her confusion.

“The tip of your nose is twitching,” he informed her. “It's rather adorable.”

“What is that lovely smell?”

“Vanilla. Some people find it a little plain, a little – prosaic, shall we say. Lacking in spiciness. But I think it’s as well to begin with something fairly natural and easy on the palate. No, keep your eyes closed. Concentrate all your attention on your sense of taste. Now, open your mouth. Put your tongue out, just a little. That’s right – “

At first, she was aware only of a roughness, which was the undersurface of the ladyfinger, and a sensation halfway between pleasure and pain: the sweetness of the sugar was so intense that it practically abraded the sensitive, lubricated surface of her tongue. 

“Bite,” Rude murmured in her ear.

The ladyfinger was already beginning to melt on her tongue. She explored its sugary underbelly with the tip of her tongue, feeling it softening, becoming moister. Obediently, she bit. The ladyfinger broke in half, release a burst of powerful flavour so intense that Pudenda’s eyes flew open as she rocked back, moaning.

“Too much?” he asked.

Wordlessly, because her mouth was full of biscuit, Pudenda nodded.

“Chew,” he ordered.

The more she chewed, the more intense the flavour became. It was drowning all her other senses, building to a peak she didn't know if she could endure. She couldn't breathe – 

“Swallow,” he instructed her, his warm breath ghosting over the flushed skin of her cheek. Oh, he was enjoying every minute of this, the sadist, watching her as she wrestling helplessly against the overpowering deliciousness that was consuming her mouth, her lips, her tongue. 

Her heart was racing. Her mouth was salivating. Her olfactory gland was swollen, over-stimulated. She could stand no more. With a gulp, she swallowed, and then turned wide-eyed to stare at him, gasping for air.

“Was it good?” he asked.

Unable to speak, she nodded enthusiastically.

He smiled, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. There was a darkness there, a shadow, that she couldn't fathom. Was it to do with her, or with something else entirely? 

Could she, perhaps, help find a way to chase that shadow away?


	6. Extra Minty!

For the rest of the flight Pudenda and Rude lolled about on the polar bear rug, finishing off the packet of ladyfinger biscuits between them. Rude told her about all the different desserts that used the simple cookie as a base – trifles, tiramisu, and charlottes to name but three, often soaked in liquers such as rum or sherry in a manner that struck Pudenda as unbelievably decadent. Yet Rude spoke of it as an everyday kind of thing. He also told her that ladyfinger biscuits had many different names in different languages: savoiardi in Italian, latifeh in Persian, bebi pishkoti in Slovenian, and in French – the language of love – biscuit de la boudoire. 

Oh, my, thought Soak, he’s so wordly and well-travelled and knowledgeable. What did I ever do to attract such a man? How can I ever hope to keep him? Every woman in the world wants this man, but by some miracle, he’s chosen me. Perhaps if I just agree to whatever he wants, whenever he wants it, he won’t get tired of me. 

“Oi,” the pilot Reno O’Turk banged with his fist on the cabin door. “We’re landing in ten minutes. Make yerselves presentable.”

“Presentable?” Soak turned to Rude with a question in her eyes.

Reaching his hand towards her face, Rude used his thumb to wipe the last few traces of vanilla-flavoured sugar from Pudenda’s ripe lower lip, then slowly licked his thumb clean. “Yes,” he said, “As soon as we land in Midgar, I’m going to take you to meet my Boss.”

“Your – Boss!” Pudenda squeaked. But wasn’t Rude his own boss? What was going on here? Had she been led up the garden-path by this sugar-tongued charmer? Well, even if she had, this path, rocky and rose-strewn and full of twists and turns as it was, seemed a damn sight more interesting than any other path she’d ever been on.

“Yes,” he replied. “And I think you should know, I’ve never introduced one of my women to him before. What have you done to me, Pudenda?” he growled. “I can’t help wanting everyone to know that you’re mine.” 

The helicopter landed, the engines died, the fuselage door was opened, and Rude helped Pudenda down the steps to the landing pad. Looking around, she realised that they were on the top of a very tall building in the middle of a large city: it was night, and greenish-black storm clouds were boiling overhead, blotting out the moon and the stars. From the city below rose a strange green light, an eerie glow. Pudenda was afraid to look down, however, because she suffered terribly from vertigo, which was a nuisance, but not as bad as being clumsy. 

"At last!" cried a voice. It was a female voice. Pudenda's heart sank. She looked around, and saw that said voice belonged to a petite - in fact, practically flat-chested - blonde woman in a dark blue suit hurrying across the landing pad towards them. Oh, god, more blondes, just my luck, Pudenda sighed to herself. Turkmenistan was probably swarming with the wretched things. She watched as the flame-headed pilot grabbed the girl round the waist and bent her backwards in a deep French kiss which, judging from the way she wriggled in his grip and pulled at his hair, the blondette clearly reciprocated. Was she Reno O'Turk's girlfriend, Pudenda wondered, or just a slut?

Rude chose this moment to bend down and murmur in her ear, "That's our intern, Elena McTurkish. She's a real eager beaver. You'll see."

Reno broke off the kiss and stood back, grinning. "Miss me, Laney?"

"Oh, shut up, you skanky sleazebag. And don't ever grab me or kiss me again or I'll have your ass in the biggest sexual harassment lawsuit this company has ever seen. But only after breaking all your teeth first."

"See, she likes me," Reno informed the intrigued Pudenda.

"If your definition of "like" is "forced to breathe the same air as", then yeah, sure, I like you," said Elena McTurkish. "Now step out of grabbing distance or I'll shoot. I'm not even kidding. Hi," she said to Pudenda, holding out her hand. 

"Welcome to Midgar."  
. 

Pudenda just couldn't stop thinking about candy. It was all Rude's fault, that naughty man! In her mind she metaphorically associated each of his colleagues with confectionary items. Elena McTurkish was a Crunchie Bar: that businesslike suit and assertive manner concealed, like a coat of milk-chocolate, the essential blondeness within. Potentially delicious, indisputably irritating: she would seem to melt, but hours later you'd still be picking bits of her off your teeth. 

Reno O'Turk was like a packet of Skittles, or sour jelly beans: loud, colourful, strongly-flavoured, maybe even irresistible (if she hadn't seen Rude first) but if you didn't ration yourself, before you knew it you'd realise you'd eaten too much and were feeling a bit sick.

The tall, broad-shouldered ravenette with the chiselled jaw, inscrutable almond joy eyes and what looked like a chocolate chip stuck between his brows who stood waiting for them at the top of a sweeping staircase was, Pudenda thought, like a glossy stick of black bitter licorice or a stern smooth aniseed ball - barely a sweet at all. "This is our leader, Tseng Takusunoshou," Rude introduced.

Tseng looked Pudenda up and down with eyes like an electron microscope: they were clinical and made here feel very small. Oh my, she thought in a tiny voice. 

"Follow me," said Tseng in a deep voice like melted chocolate oozing into her ears and down her spine.

He turned and led the way towards a large chrome and ivory desk standing on a raised dais, framed by a panoramic window overlooking the bright lights of the city far below. A man was sitting behind this desk, arrayed in an expensively tailored spotless white linen suit with accents of charcoal, and a pirate patch over his right eye. He stood up when she approached, a courtesy which made Pudenda decide that his hair colour was not, after, strawberry blonde, as she had thought at first, but gingersnap.

Elena McTurkish, Reno O'Turk, and Rude all stopped two metres from the desk and bowed deeply. Pudenda, realising that the guy behind the desk was somebody important, copied their motions. 

Tseng intoned, "His Supreme Excellency Rufus 'Turkel' Shinra, President of the ShinRa Confectionary Corporation and Chairman and Numero Uno Donator to the "Let's Put Smiles on Their Faces" Children's Home and Social Fund, welcomes you to Midgar, Ms Grucock."

Pudenda looked up from her bow to see him smiling at her. A chilling, immaculate smile.

Rufus Shinra, she decided, was an icy-hot, extra strong coolmint.


End file.
